I always feel like a traveler, going somewhere, toward some
destination. If I sense that this destination doesn’t in fact
exist, that seems to me quite reasonable and very likely true.
—VINCENT VAN GOGH, JULY 22, 1888
Well, I have risked my life for my work, and it has cost me
half my reason—
—VINCENT VAN GOGH, JULY 23, 1890
This is a story about the color blue. It may dodge and weave, hide and deceive, take you down paths of love and history and inspiration, but it’s always about blue.
How do you know, when you think blue—when you say blue—that you are talking about the same blue as anyone else?
You cannot get a grip on blue.
Blue is the sky, the sea, a god’s eye, a devil’s tail, a birth, a strangulation, a virgin’s cloak, a monkey’s ass. It’s a butterfly, a bird, a spicy joke, the saddest song, the brightest day.
Blue is sly, slick, it slides into the room sideways, a slippery trickster.
This is a story about the color blue, and like blue, there’s nothing true about it. Blue is beauty, not truth. “True blue” is a ruse, a rhyme; it’s there, then it’s not. Blue is a deeply sneaky color.
Even deep blue is shallow.
Blue is glory and power, a wave, a particle, a vibration, a resonance, a spirit, a passion, a memory, a vanity, a metaphor, a dream.
Blue is a simile.
Blue, she is like a woman.